The virtual reality market seems to have a lot to offer in 2016, as some of the most anticipated VR headsets are set to appear in consumers’ hands in the coming months. Although an increasing number of manufacturers have gained an interest in VR and joined the market with various budget-friendly solutions costing $100 or so, fans of this particular concept are well aware that there are currently two main players sitting at the top of the food chain, namely the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. The latter became available for pre-order yesterday, and as yet it appears to be a great success, with more than 15,000 units now confirmed to have been pre-ordered in less than 10 minutes of availability.
As exciting as the Rift or the Vive might be, the reality is that these headsets are not aimed at the average consumer, simply because they are not stand-alone products. Both devices need to be paired with a fairly powerful computer, with the Vive requiring at least a 4th generation Intel Core i5 CPU (i5 4590 or AMD equivalent), and an Nvidia GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X graphics card (or better). With that being said, there was always a question of just how many consumers will be ready to adopt the Vive, or the Rift, early on. Well, as far as the HTC Vive goes, it looks like the gadget is already seeing massive success. According to a recent tweet from an HTC employee, after the HTC Vive became available for pre-order yesterday, over 15K units have been pre-ordered in less than 10 minutes. The Vive is priced at $799 in the US, which basically means that HTC recorded roughly $12 million in revenue in under 10 minutes after the headset became available for pre-purchase.
Good news for HTC, but sadly, in the meantime it looks like the Vive’s shipping date for the pre-ordered units has been pushed back from April to May 2016, so early adopters will need to wait at least one more month before they can experience the Vive. The reasons for the delay remains unknown, but it’s possible that the Taiwanese manufacturer has experienced a larger number of orders than expected.